not everything that is lost is meant to be found

you can love something deeply and still let it go.

he knew how to sit beside silence without needing to fill it.  
he listened the way the moon listens—  
present, patient, unafraid of the dark. 
 
and he didn’t just hear me—he understood me.  
he moved through my world like he was always meant to be there,  
like the universe had carved out time and breath and warmth 
just so i could know what it meant to be seen without flinching.  

he was my best friend in the way soulmates are  
before romance complicates everything; 
before hearts get greedy and ask for more than presence.  

three weeks in, 
i saw him at my wedding.  
not as the one I’d wait for at the altar,  
but the one smoothing down my veil,  
making me laugh through my nerves,  
the one who already knew how to carry the pieces of me no one else saw.  

but he wanted to be the one i walked to,  
not the one watching me go.  
and how could i fault him for that?  
how could i not love the one  
who never once asked me to be anything but exactly who i was,  
until i asked it of myself?

so i bent—  
in small, invisible ways.  
i whispered my doubts into jars, hid them like fireflies.  
i tried to believe that love could grow from comfort,  
that tenderness could become longing  
if watered long enough.  

but you can only fold yourself so many times before the creases become scars.  
you can only rewrite the truth so many times before it stops sounding like your voice.  

and when we broke, we didn’t shatter.  
we just... dissolved.  
like fog in the morning.  
like something that only exists because the light hasn’t hit it yet.

and some nights i still wonder.  
if i dialed his name into the quiet again, would he answer?  
would the universe forgive me  
for wanting something back  
that I already returned?

would he forgive the ending if i promised a better beginning?  
could we meet again somewhere in the middle,  
as new versions of ourselves—wiser, braver,  
a little more whole,  
a little too late?  

i’ll always love him.  
not in the desperate, reaching way i used to,  
but in the steady hum of gratitude that never quite leaves,  
in the echo of laughter in places that no longer echo back,  
in the parts of me that are better because he was here.  

but the truth that sits heavy in my chest is this:  
love that asks you to disappear is not love that can stay.  
and even though i still carry him in everything soft and sacred,  
i know we could never fit without breaking the parts of me i finally learned to protect.  

maybe,
not everything that is lost is meant to be found.

some things vanish like stars at dawn—
not gone,
just no longer visible
from where you’re standing.

he was never loud about his love.
he showed up in small, steady ways—
like light through thick curtains,
like breath warming a window
before you realize how cold it really was.

he was my quiet miracle.  
my warm tea in winter,  
my anchor when the waves of everything else threatened to pull me under.  
he taught me how to be held  
so that when i was alone again,  
i would remember what it should feel like.  

he was the pause between heartbeats
when everything feels still and right.
he was the way I smiled without meaning to.
the home I didn’t know I was homesick for.

but some love doesn’t ask to be chased.
it asks to be cherished,
then released.

and that’s what he was—
not my forever,
but my awakening.
the mirror I didn’t flinch to look into.
the kindness that taught me
how to be soft without being afraid.

i could search for him in every voice,
every laugh, every gentle presence—
but i know now:
some things are sacred
because they end.

he was never mine to keep—
only mine to carry.

and i do.
i always will.

but some love,
no matter how true,
isn’t meant to circle back.
it’s meant to leave its mark,
and move on—
so that you can, too.